Two professors at Chest Hospital test positive for COVID-19

Hyderabad: Two senior professors working at the Government Chest and TB hospital in Erragadda tested positive for COVID-19. The test results of the two came out on Wednesday. Though hospital authorities were not available for comment, sources in the health department confirmed the cases. This is the first case of the staff at the Chest Hospital getting infected with the virus. While they were placed under isolation as a preventive measure, their colleagues and few other supporting staff at the hospital, who were working with them, were advised to quarantine themselves at home.

The Chest Hospital is one of the hospitals in Hyderabad that is treating COVID-19 patients.

According to sources, the two professors were working in the outpatient wing at the hospital, where persons with respiratory and other breathing complications and even TB are treated. Though there is a COVID-19 ward in the hospital, the doctors were not assigned to treating the COVID-19 persons and were confined to treating patients in the OP wing only.

Though the exact source of contact has not been found yet, it is suspected that they had contracted it from an infected person who had met them for consultation in the OP unit a few days ago.

Around 170 doctors and health care professionals are working at different COVID-19 treating hospitals across the city including Gandhi hospital, Government hospital at Koti, and Osmania and NIMS hospitals. Further, the doctors have been alleging that many of them are already infected with the virus but it has not come out as the government is neglecting to test them. They have been demanding COVID-19 tests for all those involved in treating COVID-19 persons and all those working at all hospitals across the state.